Since Montenegro applied for membership in the union in 2008 and already de-facto use the Euro (as a consequence of unilitirary adopting DEM in the late 90s, as you all probably know), I was thinking about what might be a possible scenario upon gaining membership.

Would they automatically be considered members of EMU (and be allowed to mint coints...), as they affectively doesn't have a national currency?
Or would they be considered as "psuedo-participating" in ERMII, proving convergence for 2 years (keeping inflation, etc.)?

One thing struck me, I was thinking about the situation in Montenegro where they have unilaterally adopted the Euro (or actually did so with the DEM back in the late 90s).
Now that they have applied for membership of the union a while ago, what would be the scenario when the gain membership?
Since they de-facto don't have a currency of there own, would they have to stay in ERMII for two years, as usual?
Could they even be in ERMII given this status?
Or would they automatically be considered EMU members?

I guess (only a guess !!) that they would need to fulfill all the conditions of former newcomers to become EU-member + additionally, fulfill the criteria of € applicants before they can join EU and €-zone : that is in my eyes the only way !

an-148 wrote:I guess (only a guess !!) that they would need to fulfill all the conditions of former newcomers to become EU-member + additionally, fulfill the criteria of € applicants before they can join EU and €-zone : that is in my eyes the only way !

I agree an-148.

(besides, I am personally not very kind to this kind of country to join the € )

Don't think we need to seriously debate this matter, as Estonia will be the last country for a good long time that introduces the euro. But why not have a hypothetical discussion? Back in 2007, both the European Commission and the ECB did indeed consider Montenegro's unilateral euroization to be a problem. See these articles for example: http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/5446" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://euobserver.com/9/24924" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Then again, is there really a fundamental difference between a country with a currency that is in ERM-II but unilaterally tied to the euro (Estonia), or a country that has a currency which is not in the exchange rate mechanism and yet has a fixed euro exchange rate (Bulgaria), and a country that simply uses the euro (Montenegro)? Don't think so. In my opinion, Montenegro will not become an EU member state any time in the near future. Now if it ever does, and if the euro is still around then, and if the convergence criteria still apply then (quite a few Ifs, I know), then yes, they would technically have to be in ERM-II for two years, I think. After all, that phase is also used for evaluation or performance checks ...